


The Great House Elf Migration, or The Origin of American Gremlins

by joisbishmyoga



Series: Wizarding High Essays [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, NOT NICE I MEAN IT, essay style fic, hey hey you you I don't like your canon, history is not nice, no jkr history does not work that way, no way no way I think it needs more nuance, there is no reason for wizarding nations to match muggle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7557709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 20th century was not kind to the House Elves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great House Elf Migration, or The Origin of American Gremlins

The 20th century saw one of the most significant developments in the species _Elvus domesticus_ , known commonly as the British House Elf or American Gremlin.  Muggle events had a powerful effect upon the differentiation of the American Gremlin ( _E. domesticus americana_ ) from its parent species.  Chief among these events were the Great Depression, both World Wars, and -- though not technically an event, per se -- the low population density of the Great Plains.  
  
The word "gremlin" can be traced back only to the early 1920s.  In the 1910s, an outbreak of anti-Muggle sentiment -- itself traceable to the eugenics movement that originated among Muggles themselves around the turn of the century -- mixed with a visceral horror of the widespead pollution from cars and factories, resulting in a short-lived fad for sending House Elves to sabotage centers of Muggle technology.  This happened to coincide with the Muggles' first World War, so said centers tended to be military factories and bases.  Between their heightened security and the House Elves' clumsiness in remaining unseen, which may have been delibarate, this trend was soon banned by the Ministry, but not before bemused Muggle soldiers had coined the term and begun spreading tales.  
  
The gremlins of the British Air Force may well have been forgotten in time, but in 1929, the American Muggle economy crashed and took the wizards' with it.  Wizards there had gained great wealth through Muggle investments since the 1870s, and the nouveau riche of Philpont, Norumbega, imported high culture and fashion from their European cousins en masse.  This included several hundred House Elves, all of whom were summarily clothed when their families fell into poverty.  At the time, Norumbega was sailing through the south of Lake Michigan, and the newly freed Elves fled to shore and headed inland.  Some few made their way to Detroit, where a mailing outpost for Salem Academy took them in, but the bulk of the herd found the Mississippi River and followed it south through Potawatomi.  Upon reaching the border of Cahokia, c. 1934, they found their way blocked by the city, and were pushed upriver along the Missouri where they met no resistance.  
  
By the end of the decade, Elves began taking up residence in large public buildings.  In this region and at this time, these were mostly factories and military garages, which provided plenty of oddities to meddle with and appease Elven instincts.  The Elves were by now completely incoherent, and the new generation were lacking in any concept of human language or domestic work, much less the skill to discern Muggles from wizards and remain hidden from either.  Rumors once again spread through the Muggle military, and soon reached the ears of British soldiers who could provide a name: gremlin.  Yet to the Muggles, this was still just a story confined to some sectors of the military, and would probably have remained so had it not been for a British veteran turned children's author, and a world-famous cartoonist: Roald Dahl and Walt Disney.  They popularized the gremlin in Muggle culture with just a couple of well-recieved stories and several cartoons in the 1940s.  
  
The Muggle image of a gremlin faded over the next forty years, though it was revitalized in the 1980s by a Hollywood movie with no resemblence to a House Elf at all, but the reality of the Elves only grew.  With no native predators on the continent, the population boomed over the second half of the 20th century, until a wizard could hardly go a mile without flushing a dozen wild Elves from the bush.  Most humans to encounter a wild Elf return days late, lucky to have any belongings left, and with their hair and any clothing left tattered and tied into knots.  They're now considered a menace, and are hunted for sport and pest control throughout the Great Plains nations.  
  
The 20th century turned House Elves from domestic servants to public nuisances through a series of Muggle events.  The wars, economics, and population centers of the Muggles Transfigured a magical species' behavior completely in less than two generations.  It seems the Wizarding World is not so separate from the rest of the globe after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Weak thesis statement, incorrect format, too much information. It's good you did your research, but work on paring it down to only three points. Excellent use of vocabulary. 74% C-


End file.
